Stephen Harper once made the claim: "This party will not take its position based on public opinion polls. We will not take a stand based on focus groups. We will not take a stand based on phone-in shows or householder surveys or any other vagaries of pubic opinion." It's fun to go back a few years when blogging, to see how present day actions relate. Harper's hyper-partisanship is certainly nothing new and neither is the vindictive cruel side of his nature that made him such a hit with the National Citizens Coalition.
The Sponsorship Scandal helped to bring him to power, with promises of cleaning up government, that proved to be more of a PR gimmick than any actual attempt to clean up government.
But back in the day, when he was still riding his high horse, he decided to use taxpayers money to see if he could dig up more dirt on the Liberals, knowing that he couldn't ride Adscam forever.
Besides, when the path was leading straight back to Brian Mulroney, whose patronage appointments and maneuvering of Conservative friendly ad agencies, set the stage for the scandal, he thought it best to end there.
So instead he decided to see if he could find a story on the Grit's use of opinion polls, only to discover that his own government was spending more on opinion polls than any before it. Oops!
Probe into Liberal polling dings Tories instead
IS THIS REALLY CONSERVATIVE? IS STEPHEN HARPER REALLY THE BEST CHOICE FOR CANADA?OTTAWA -- An independent investigator hired by the Harper government to look into past Liberal polling practices has wound up shining an unfavourable light on the Tories' penchant for polling. Daniel Paille notes that the Conservative government commissioned more than two polls per business day in the past year, a figure he calls "quite astounding.''
His report shows that the government spent $31.2 million on opinion research in the last year -- more than any previous year and almost twice the $18 million spent on average during the Liberal years ....
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